


When They Knock You Down

by yet_intrepid



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, Slavery, Tatooine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 13:42:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11784351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: Anakin’s gone, free and away to a better life, and Shmi’s youthful recklessness is making a comeback.





	When They Knock You Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [carmarie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carmarie/gifts).



> Written for carmarie in the Star Wars Mini Exchange! 
> 
> Title is from "Be Still" by The Killers: "when they knock you down / don't break character / you've got so much heart."

It’s a rookie mistake, really. Shmi knows better, knows how useless it is to twist away from a beating. She hasn’t done it in years, not since Anakin was born. Having someone besides herself to look after taught her caution.

But Anakin’s gone, free and away to a better life, and Shmi’s youthful recklessness is making a comeback.

All that to say, it’s the first time Watto’s laid a hand on her in weeks and she didn’t even manage to keep herself still. Not three blows in and she’d twisted around, hand up, and whatever spare bit of cord Watto was swinging at her caught around her fingers.

It really karking hurts. Her tunic is thick enough that the thin bit of plastic-coated wire couldn’t do more than sting when it landed over her back and shoulders. On her hand, though, right across the crease of her fingers, a dark red welt is rising.

Shmi’s never had her hands beaten before. Some masters do it, sure, but most are smart enough to realize that sore hands will slow down the work faster than most anything else. And Shmi’s got to work for two now that Anakin is gone.

 It could have been worse, she admits grudgingly, as Watto finishes up cursing at her and wanders off into the back of the shop. The whole thing hardly took five minutes. She’s had worse punishments for doing nothing wrong at all.

She hasn’t done anything this time, either, Shmi argues back to herself. Watto’s fury over the Jedi’s gambling luck can hardly be called her fault. And she’s the one who’s lost her son.

Not lost. She’s got to remember that. He’s not dead or sold off; he’s free. It’s what she always wanted for him, and she should rejoice in that.

But as she settles down on the floor to finish a repair that Anakin left half-done, Shmi doesn’t feel in the least like rejoicing. The welt on her fingers makes her clumsy, slow at the sort of maintenance that’s more than routine. Out in the yard behind the shop, Watto’s throwing things in the way that indicates he’s got plenty of anger left. It’s hotter than it’s been the past few days, too, which just feels like the entire universe is conspiring to make her miserable.

Shmi isn’t usually one for self-pity. She isn’t usually one for self-blame, either. But as the screw she’s fumbling with escapes her aching fingers and rolls under the counter, she’s strongly tempted to give in to both.

Instead, she gets onto her hands and knees and peers under the counter. It’s too dark to see anything. So sighing, Shmi gets up and looks around for one of those headlamps Anakin uses to help with work on ship engines.

There’s not one on the counter. There’s not one in any of the drawers behind the counter. There’s not one on the shelves.

That means they’re back in the yard. And _that_ means she’ll have to get in Watto’s way. But the alternative is finding a new screw of the appropriate size in the disastrous bin of screws that Watto messes up every time she organizes it, and that sounds like a great way to waste time, which is nominally what she was getting beaten for in the first place.

Shmi sighs and tells herself firmly that it doesn’t matter.

She then tells herself, with somewhat less conviction, that some things do still matter. And then she gets up and heads for the back.

“What d’you think you’re doing, uh?” Watto demands at the sight of her. He slams some fist-sized clump of metal to the ground. “You’re supposed to be fixing that ventilator motor!”

“I need a headlamp, master,” Shmi answers, her eyes politely lowered. The clump of metal rolls, skitters close to her feet; she doesn’t dodge away from it.

“Headlamp! No, I think you don’t.” Watto lobs something else, which catches her arm with a jagged edge. Shmi flinches on instinct.

“A screw rolled under the counter, master,” she explains, when she’s stilled herself with an long breath in and out. “I can’t see to get it out.”

Watto grumbles some more, but shifts to throwing things at the wall instead of at her. Shmi takes that as permission to look for what she needs. Thankfully, she sights one of the headlamps after just a minute or so of digging through junk, and it even switches on properly when she tests it. With a cautious glance at Watto, Shmi escapes into the front of the shop.

She grabs the motor she’s supposed to be fixing and brings it with her behind the counter, where she straps on the headlamp and gets on her hands and knees again to look underneath. Thankfully, the screw is close enough to grab. As she gets it between her fingers and starts to rise, though, the headlamp’s beam glints off something else.

She thinks she recognizes its shape.

Carefully, Shmi clutches the screw in one hand and reaches the other, the welted one, towards the scrap of metal that shines in the sand. She grips it, pulls it from under the counter, rises to her knees. And then her breath comes in sharp and sad.

It’s what she thought—a part Anakin hid, hoping to smuggle it home. A part for the chip scanner.

Shmi closes her eyes as she turns the little piece in her sore fingers. If she’s going to be young and reckless again, if nothing’s going to anchor her to sense—well, she might as well act on all her wild hopes. She might as well believe, just as she told Anakin to believe, that they’ll see one another again.

So she squeezes the bit of metal tight—a wish, a prayer—and then she tucks it into her skirt pocket, guarding it like she would the life of her son. Despair is a rookie mistake, after all, and Shmi knows better.


End file.
